Organisms in a community are linked through what they eat and what eats them. A food chain is a single pathway connecting a producer with several levels of consumers. In a typical marine food chain, dinoflagellates convert energy from sunlight into food through photosynthesis and store it in their tissues. Copepods feed on dinoflagellates and incorporate this energy into their own tissues.

Students use marine organism cards and trophic level classifications to identify and describe food chains in several marine ecosystems. In Step 5, instead of small group work and discussions, you may choose to turn the Feeding Frenzy activity into a game format with rules and points. 1. Define the ...

A marine ecosystem food chain is a food chain that is specifically found within marine ecosystems. Many marine food chains begin with phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are microscopic marine algae no bigger than 20mm. Although seemingly insignificant, phytoplankton provide the foundation, or the first level, of the sea’s food chain in a balanced ...

Besides this leveled food chain, there is other alternative food chain inside ocean ecosystem and it exists at the deep sea level in which sunlight cannot pass through. They are independent of sun energy and their ecosystems derive from the chemical energy that enters the ocean.

In addition to providing many benefits to the natural world, marine ecosystems also provide social, economic, and biological ecosystem services to humans. Pelagic marine systems regulate the global climate, contribute to the water cycle, maintain biodiversity, provide food and energy resources, and create opportunities for recreation and tourism. ...

The Ocean Food Chain. An ecosystem is the grouping of plants and animals and the location that they live in. All the oceans make up the largest ecosystem. Smaller ecosystems exist as well. ... In conclusion, the ocean ecosystem operates smoothly because of the interaction of all of it's organisms.

A food chain in the ocean begins with tiny one-celled organisms called diatoms, which make their own food from sunlight. Shrimplike creatures eat the diatoms. Small fish eat the shrimplike creatures, and bigger fish eat the small fish.

An ocean food chain sums up the predator-prey relations between animals in the ocean ecosystem. For example, a wide variety of animals eat plankton. Some of these plankton predators, such as crabs, are also eaten by other animals, such as tuna and seagulls. These predators may also then be eaten by even larger animals, such as sharks.